The present invention relates to an industrial vehicle such as a forklift truck and more particularly to the industrial vehicle with which a hood is provided, the hood being opened and closed around an end of the hood that functions as a pivotal axis, a seat and an armrest being provided on or above the hood.
To supply an operator of the forklift truck with a comfortable working environment by reducing fatigue of the operator, such a forklift truck that is provided with an armrest at one side of the seat (at a right side in many cases) is proposed. In the forklift truck, the seat and the armrest for the operator are placed on the hood that covers a battery or an engine. To provide the battery or the engine with service, the hood is structured so as to be opened rearward around the rear end of the hood functioning as a pivotal axis. In such a structure, when the hood is pivoted rearward around the rear end thereof to be opened, if the armrest is arranged so as to protrude more forward than the front end surface of the hood, it is possible that the armrest interferes with a head guard for protecting the operator. Therefore, to prevent the armrest from interfering with the head guard, it is preferred that the armrest is structured so as to vary its position for installing the armrest relative to the hood.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,941,603 discloses such a structure that an armrest is installed in a vehicle seat so as to be capable of adjusting a position thereof. This armrest according to the Patent is installed in the vehicle seat through a parallel linkage. In this case, the armrest is movable between an upper position at the front side and a lower position at the rear side so as to maintain a parallel state.
When the structure of the armrest provided with the parallel linkage is adopted, the structure of the armrest becomes complicated and furthermore it is hard to secure a relatively large displacement of the armrest. Therefore, the structure of the armrest provided with the parallel linkage is not necessarily suitable as a structure for installing the armrest in the hood for the industrial vehicle.